3 “On my bed night after night [I dreamed that] I sought the one
Whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him.^(A)
2 
“I said ‘So I must arise now and go out into the city;
Into the streets and into the squares [places I do not know]
I must seek him whom my soul loves.’
I sought him but I did not find him.
³ 
“The watchmen who go around the city found me,
And I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’
⁴ 
“Scarcely had I passed them
When I found him whom my soul loves.
I held on to him and would not let him go
Until I had brought him to my mother’s house,
And into the chamber of her who conceived me.”^(B)

⁵ 
“I command that you take an oath, O daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles or by the does of the field,
That you do not rouse nor awaken my love
Until she pleases.”

⁶ 
“What is this coming up from the wilderness
Like [stately] pillars of smoke
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
With all the fragrant powders of the merchant?”

⁷ 
“Behold, it is the couch (^[a]palanquin) of Solomon;
Sixty mighty men around it,
Of the mighty men of Israel.
⁸ 
“All of them handle the sword,
All expert in war;
Each man has his sword at his thigh,
Guarding against the terrors of the night.
⁹ 
“King Solomon has made for himself a palanquin
From the [cedar] wood of Lebanon.
¹⁰ 
“He made its posts of silver,
Its back of gold,
Its seat of purple cloth,
The interior lovingly and intricately wrought
By the daughters of Jerusalem.
¹¹ 
“Go forth, O daughters of Zion,
And gaze on King Solomon wearing the crown
With which his mother [Bathsheba] has crowned him
On the day of his wedding,
On the day of his gladness of heart.”